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Monday, June 5, 2017

We're Going To Need a Bigger Popcorn Popper . . .

[ click pic to enlarge ]

The plot thickens . . .

JUNE 5, 2017 5:19 PM

Just a few days before the 2016 presidential election, Russian military intelligence hackers targeted a Florida voting software company and more than 100 local election officials, according to a highly classified National Security Agency report obtained by The Intercept and verified by CBS News.

The NSA report confirms that “Russian military intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, or GRU,” conducted the cyber attacks. GRU “may have breached at least some elements of the voting system,” particularly “elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards.”

So, up to this point we have only been talking about Russian interference in the election from the standpoint of the hack of the DNC servers and the releasing of stolen material that was politically embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

But if this story is true, and the NSA eventually corroborates it, we are talking about a whole other level of nefariousness. It would mean that Russia deliberately targeted America's voting infrastructure in an effort to alter the outcome of a Presidential election. That dear readers is an action that is dangerously close to bordering on an act of war, if not actually being an act of war.

And it begs the obvious, core question then --- if this is true, it means that the Russians, for motivations yet to be determined, had made a determination that they preferred to have a specific individual be elected President of The United States of America. Having said that, the evidence is piled pretty fucking high at this point that they chose Donald Trump as their candidate and that in turn begs additional questions --- specifically, and The Gadfly will get right to the point --- to what extent was Drumpf complicit?

This Thursday's testimony on capitol hill by sacked FBI chief James Comey should be quite the entertaining and likely eye-opening event. Let's hope Comey can put a few of these puzzle pieces together for us all and point special counsel investigator Robert Mueller in the right direction --- (hint, hint - just follow the Drumpf overseas money trail).

Keep that popcorn popper warmed and oiled.

***UPDATE: Apparently there has been an arrest within hours of The Intercept story being published of an individual who leaked the NSA story to them. That pretty much confirms the authenticity of the report.